Moms are always there to provide us with their love, support and wisdom.
It is said that a mother’s love can make an ordinary human achieve the impossible. The support, inspiration and sometimes some tough love is what we all need to reach the height of our potential. That is the reason why some of our writers became what they are because of their mother. Here are some of the fascinating anecdotes of famous writers and their moms.
Octavia Butler
Renowned author Octavia Butler was raised by her grandmother and widowed mother, whose name was also Octavia. When she was little, her mother often brought her to her workplace. She worked as a maid, and the young Octavia felt bad for her mother whenever she used the backdoor in the house. Her experience of seeing her mother work is what served as inspiration for her masterpiece “Kindred”.
Ernest Hemingway
Not all mothers have been as supportive of their children’s literary endeavoursas Grace Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s mother. His debut novel” The Sun Also Rises” was shunned by his mother. She absolutely abhorred the way he used cuss words in his book. She expressed her disdain in a letter saying that every page of the novel was loathing, and if it had been some other writer’s book,she would have pitched it in the fire. It is said that Hemingway kept the letter with him all his life.
Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie fondly remembers in her autobiography that her mother always thought that she should wait until she was eight years old to learn how to read. She said that it was better for not only her brain but her eyes too. But much to her mother’s distress, she taught herself to read instead.
Alice Walker
Alice Walker could not thank her mother enough as she gave wings to her aspiration of becoming a writer very early in her life. Her mother, Minnie Lou, gave her three important things when she was living in Jim Crow South. These things were a typewriter, a suitcase and a sewing machine. Typewriter gave her freedom to express herself, a suitcase was meant to escape from the prejudices of her peers and community, and lastly, sewing machine that taught her how to be self-sufficient.
Do we need to say it again? Mothers are the best.
